


You Don't Have to Stay Anywhere Forever

by trickybonmot



Category: Hellboy (movie-verse), Lucifer (Comic), The Sandman
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2011-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 19:05:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickybonmot/pseuds/trickybonmot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hellboy gets some food for thought from an unexpected source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Have to Stay Anywhere Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place some time before Golden Army and after Children and Monsters (probably not long after). The only thing that makes it movie-verse Hellboy is Abe's powers.

The BPRD is investigating a little disturbance in Brooklyn, in a district of nice old brick buildings that have passed through slum-hood and come out the other side with yuppie-sized price tags. One of them has got something old in it: a barrow-wight or something nastier, no one’s sure just yet.

Hellboy’s drawn the straw for the above-ground floors, while the other two explore the weirdly extensive basement. Whoever lived here in the old days, they were definitely up to something unwise. Occult doings have left a shivery sort of taint on the place that Hellboy can feel with every breath he takes.

Unlike most of the old places on this block, this one hasn’t been chopped up into apartments. Hellboy is exploring the first floor when he hears an unexpected sound: the notes of piano, drifting down the hall. And not a recording, either. Someone is in the house...someone who knows his way around a smarmy lounge tune, which somehow is the strangest thing about it.

He follows the notes down a short hall, and finds himself in a dimly-lit room, with a baby grand piano taking up one corner of it. He can’t see the face of the guy playing. Then the music stops.

“Anung un Rama,” intones a voice, and Hellboy’s neck-hairs stand on end. The voice is smooth as glass, but with a crazy sort of extra-planar overlay, as though a choir were singing his words backwards as he speaks them. That’s a voice that knows what to do with a name.

Then Lucifer stands up from the piano. Hellboy isn’t sure how he knows that’s who it is. Someone else might mistake him for just a sort of chiseled English gent in a slim black suit. But Red does know. It’s as though his name hangs over him in letters of fire.

Lucifer lifts a scotch glass off the top of the baby grand.

“Welcome,” he says, without a gesture.

Hellboy doesn’t reply. He’s not ready to make nice with this...person. His mouth feels oddly dry.

“Have a drink?” Lucifer asks, pouring himself another from the gleaming sideboard.

“No thanks,” Hellboy replies.

“Suit yourself.” Lucifer takes a seat, sets down his drink, and pulls a silver cigarette case out of his jacket.

“I assume that you’ll also refuse a seat, a smoke, and a light, so forgive me if I don’t offer.”

“What do you want?” Hellboy asks.

“Just to look at you.” Lucifer takes a long drag.

Hellboy glares back.

“You think I’m responsible for your situation, is that it?”

“Stands to reason.”

Lucifer smiles, chin lifted, smoke rising from his mouth.

“Oh, no. Not _me_. You were only ever a project of the minor dukes, as likely to fail as to succeed.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” If this jerk brought him here just to trash-talk, well, he is not in the mood--

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” says Lucifer, calmly. “It’s just that you’re more perfect than they tried to make you.”

“And what do you know about me?” Red can’t keep the anger from his voice.

Lucifer regards him silently a moment, a light from somewhere catching in his amber eyes.

“You’re breaking the rules, Hellboy,” he says.

“Fuck the rules.”

“Quite.” A pause. “I no longer rule in Hell, you know.”

“You--what?” Hellboy feels like he’s been kneecapped.

“I do wish you’d sit down.”

What the hell. Hellboy slides himself onto a couch opposite Lucifer. The Devil offers him a cigarette. He takes it, but lights it himself.

“I simply left,” Lucifer goes on. “Gave the key into another power’s hands, and went about my own business.”

“But aren’t you...you know...the Devil?

“Not anymore.” His eyes narrow in...amusement? “Another angel is the devil now.”

“But how could you just leave?”

“You don’t have to stay anywhere forever.”

“But you’re still you.”

“Still who?” Lucifer exhales smoke, regarding him.

“Still _Lucifer_. A fallen angel. You still have the same...you know...” A circular gesture with the cigarette.

“Baggage?” asks Lucifer. “Family?”

“The same _nature_ ,” Hellboy finishes. “You’re not gonna be...you know. Normal. Ever.”

A bark of a laugh.

“Anung un Rama, I have no wish to be _normal_. To be human. No, thank you. but what I want, I have, and that’s a Will of my own.” Hellboy can hear the capital letter in the gothic script of Lucifer’s voice. “I have made a universe, demon. It runs according to _my_ Will.”

Hellboy ignores the various epithets with an effort.

“So why tell me about it?”

“Because I have an interest in seeing certain powers thwarted, and I want you to choose whom you will serve.”

“And if I choose to serve myself?”

“Than I have won.” Lucifer smiles. It’s an angelic kind of smile. Suddenly Hellboy notices his wings, or his wings appear, or the light shifts to reveal them. Then he’s gone, and Hellboy is alone in the room. The strings of the piano echo for a moment in response to some ineffable vibration.

“I’m not doing it for you, you know,” he says, but no one answers.

Hellboy swears quietly to himself, then pours a scotch, drinks it, pours another. He’s on the couch enjoying this one at a more leisurely pace when Abe rushes in and, seeing him, skids to a halt.

“Hellboy! It was the oddest thing, I couldn’t find you anywhere, couldn’t even _feel_ you.”

“Funny,” Hellboy says. “I was here the whole time. Want a drink?”

“Oh, no, thank you, doesn’t agree with me, you know.”

Hellboy doesn’t stand up, so Abe wanders around the room.

“Nice crown molding,” he observes, and Hellboy grunts in reply. Then Abe walks over to the Piano and places his hand on it, maybe hoping to hear the music it once made--

“Hellboy?” he asks, voice shaking suddenly, “who was here?”

Hellboy shrugs. Abe gives him a long look.

“I think we should get out of here.”

“I guess you’re right.” Hellboy sets down the glass with a click and follows Abe out to rejoin the fight.


End file.
